The goal of this course is to introduce students to the fundamentals of cross-border business transactions and provide a mix of practical skills, theoretical inquiry and contextual knowledge intended as a foundation for the practice of private international law. Typical examples of international business transactions that will be discussed in this course include: international sales agreements, acquiring a foreign company, seeking financing from foreign investors, and financing a foreign company through U.S. markets. This course will also explore some of the financial, cultural, and political forces that shape and influence international business. The course is designed to provide an understanding of the structure most often followed in transactional practice and reflected in most transaction documents. The course will cover key topics such as parties' choice of law and choice of forum, and the preparatory work required for entering into an international transaction. It will also assess some of the main risks associated with cross-border transactions, such as foreign torts and dealing with foreign sovereigns, and will discuss contractual devices used to limit these risks’ impact. Throughout, this course will provide an introduction to current topics in banking, contracts, bankruptcy, capital regulation, and corporate governance that are influencing the nature and practice of international business today.
Professor Shruti Rana focuses on international and comparative business and commercial law, and has extensive practice, advocacy, policy, and scholarly experience in these areas. She is visiting Berkeley Law from her position as a professor at the University of Maryland Law School and has previously been a visiting professor at the Central University of Finance and Economics in Beijing, China. In addition to the United States, Professor Rana has lived and worked in the U.K.,Finland, Japan, China, Malaysia, and India. While in private practice, she has worked on a variety of high-profile deals and cases focusing primarily on commercial and corporate issues. She has practiced at Williams & Connolly LLP in Washington, D.C., and Quinn Emanuel LLP and Bingham McCutchen LLP in San Francisco, CA. She also clerked for the Hon. James R. Browning at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Professor Rana also has extensive experience in the policy arena. She has worked for the United Nations, where she focused on treaty monitoring and compliance issues, and has worked on a variety of innovative projects involving corporate social responsibility, microcredit, technology policy, as well as law reform projects in the areas of corporate law and gender equity. She frequently lectures on these topics at universities and other fora around the country and globally.
Professor Rana graduated from the University of California, Berkeley (with University and Departmental Honors), where she was a Regents' Scholar. She then earned an M.Sc. from the London School of Economics (graduating with Distinction). She received her J.D. from Columbia Law School, where she was named a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and an AAUW Selected Professions Fellow.